A War Story (1981)

A War Story (1981) is a docudrama produced, written, and directed by Anne Wheeler telling the story of her father Major Ben Wheeler when he was captured by the Japanese during the Second World War.

The film also shows the Japanese perspective as it shows the harsh, inhuman treatment of the POWs. During that time, A Japanese soldier would kill himself before allowing himself to be taken prisoner. This cultural difference caused the Japanese to look at captured soldiers as having no honour. At the end of the film, as the Americans arrived to liberate the camps, many of the Japanese guards at the camp committed suicide rather than become prisoners.

Synopsis

Major Ben Wheeler was a Canadian doctor assigned to Singapore when the Japanese forced an unconditional surrender of the British in 1942. The movie recounts, through the pages of his diary, the traumatic experiences of himself and his comrades as POWs in the Kinkaseki POW camp (a mining labour camp in northern Taiwan).

Acteurs